This is pretty normal where I’m from and nothing like this has ever happen near me. Special Need kids have a different bus and the driver assumably has special instructions. Most schools don’t have the space to have a maintenance garage and don’t want to keep a spare bus in case of a breakdown. A bus company that has a hundred busses and keep a few spares off the road for emergencies.
This is less corruption and more unique incompetence.
Yeah, the classic under bid, over promise scenario happens constantly, but it works because it looks good on paper which is all the bureaucrats care about.
in software engineering we often say: outsource anything that’s not your core value proposition
basically, don’t take valuable time and effort from the thing you do well and want to focus on to do something that you don’t really care about, that someone else is spending time and effort focusing on doing well. in this situation, managing a load of busses isn’t something the schools should be focusing on: they should focus on education, and getting kids there and home should be the job of someone else specialised in doing that task
sure, but that’s a small part of actual work that’s involved in owning and maintaining a fleet of busses, paying drivers who work only a few hours per day, organising scheduling and routes, etc
That somebody requires profit to do it, school can do this at cost…
Again, theory is decent in practice this is how corruption gets done. It is cute to assume that this company is providing a better service and for cheaper.
Who ever got this contract is giving kick backs and sucking out profit… That’s a lot of overhead in of itself.
There are different business models. Some offer turnkey solutions, some focus on core values. Simply for the sake of accountability and additional tasks school buses are used for, it makes sense to keep them under the umbrella of the schools.
None of this advocates running public services like a business.
school busses in australia are never under the control of schools. i understand that our countries are different but its not a universal fact that school busses work the same everywhere
From what I read in the article, it’s not the school’s fault in any way. The bus company, however, deserves to be sued.
Why da FAQ is there such thing a bus company for public schools
This is what corruption looks like in practice folks
This is pretty normal where I’m from and nothing like this has ever happen near me. Special Need kids have a different bus and the driver assumably has special instructions. Most schools don’t have the space to have a maintenance garage and don’t want to keep a spare bus in case of a breakdown. A bus company that has a hundred busses and keep a few spares off the road for emergencies.
This is less corruption and more unique incompetence.
My guess is budget cuts.
“If we outsource transportation, we’ll be at 125% of our budget instead of 140%…”
But in reality these contracts are know for over runs as grifters under bid and then pile on after government entity is locked in.
Same thing happens in b2b too but once paper is signed and people are emotio invested the guy who made decision essentially protecting bad vendor.
Yeah, the classic under bid, over promise scenario happens constantly, but it works because it looks good on paper which is all the bureaucrats care about.
in software engineering we often say: outsource anything that’s not your core value proposition
basically, don’t take valuable time and effort from the thing you do well and want to focus on to do something that you don’t really care about, that someone else is spending time and effort focusing on doing well. in this situation, managing a load of busses isn’t something the schools should be focusing on: they should focus on education, and getting kids there and home should be the job of someone else specialised in doing that task
Taking care of and keeping track of kids is absolutely within a school’s core value proposition!
sure, but that’s a small part of actual work that’s involved in owning and maintaining a fleet of busses, paying drivers who work only a few hours per day, organising scheduling and routes, etc
That somebody requires profit to do it, school can do this at cost…
Again, theory is decent in practice this is how corruption gets done. It is cute to assume that this company is providing a better service and for cheaper.
Who ever got this contract is giving kick backs and sucking out profit… That’s a lot of overhead in of itself.
“at cost” can sometimes be far more expensive than paying someone else to do it
There are different business models. Some offer turnkey solutions, some focus on core values. Simply for the sake of accountability and additional tasks school buses are used for, it makes sense to keep them under the umbrella of the schools.
None of this advocates running public services like a business.
school busses in australia are never under the control of schools. i understand that our countries are different but its not a universal fact that school busses work the same everywhere
our system works great here